The Communist Party of Lesotho (''Mokhatio oa Makomonisi a Lesotho'') is a

communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

in Lesotho, founded on May 5, 1962. The founding secretary of the party was John Motloheloa. Other early leaders of the party included Mokhafisi Kena and Sefali Malefane. Edward Mofutsanyana was a member of the Communist Party of South Africa Central Committee (disbanded 1950) but had no part in the Lesotho party. Joe Matthews of the South African Communist Party (founded 1953) financed the launch of the Lesotho party but later supported the ANC-allied

Marematlou Freedom Party The Marematlou Freedom Party (MFP) is a royalist political party in Lesotho. History The party was established in December 1962 by a merger of the Freedom Party and the Marema-Tlou Party (MTP).Scott Rosenberg, Richard F Weisfelder & Michell F ...

. The

South African Communist Party The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by the governing Na ...

, the

Hungarian Socialist Workers Party The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party ( hu, Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt, MSZMP) was the ruling Marxist–Leninist party of the Hungarian People's Republic between 1956 and 1989. It was organised from elements of the Hungarian Working Pe ...

and

Walter Ulbricht Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (; 30 June 18931 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later (after spending the years of Nazi rule in ...

of the

Socialist Unity Party of Germany The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East German ...

sent greetings on the occasion of the founding of the party. The party began publishing ''Mosebetsi''. During the 1960s, the party split into Soviet-allied (Kena, Malefane, Mtji, and Ms Hoohlo) and Chinese-allied (Motloholoa, T. Leanya, and T. Nqojane) factions. In the 1970 election, its two Moscow-allied candidates at Thaba Chitja (Kena) and Tsoelike (Malefane) received 25 and 18 votes respectively. The party was officially banned in February 1970, but went underground and continued its activities. After the 1986 coup, its leader, Sefali Malefane, a university lecturer in Economics, was made a minister in Major-General Justin Lekhanya's regime. The party was made legal again in 1991. After the fall of

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

rule in neighbouring

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, the party advocated union with South Africa. The party ceased the publication of its newspaper, ''Mafube'', in 1997. The party's current leader is Manny Stevenson.LESOTHO POLITICAL PARTIES RECOMMIT TO NATIONAL VISION 2020

References

{{Lesotho political parties 1962 establishments in Basutoland Lesotho Political parties established in 1962 Political parties in Lesotho Socialism in Lesotho